Publicly financed elections would be a benefit to our democracy, but the likelihood of campaign-finance reform is small since corporations have so much influence on government regulations and our daily lives.

Instead of being a government watchdog and fact checking all the assertions politicians feed them, journalists have become prone to the lapdog tendencies of repeating what those in power say without questioning whether it’s true.

Reporters are too focused on covering the often-mundane daily routine of the president when they should be more attuned to the deeper issues that are affecting society such as conservative funding of anti-climate-change research.